Monday, October 8, 2012

Two Part Tactics Game Special Part 1: Vanguard Bandits for the PS1 review

I have a quiz for you all. Here are 5 different game
titles. Clock Tower, Monster Party, Kabuki Quantum Fighters, F1 Pole Position
64, and Air Boarder 64. What do these 5 games have in common? If you look at
their genres, they have nothing in common, but they do share one common
developer. If you don’t already know, the developer’s name is Human
Entertainment. A company founded in 1983 has made some noteworthy and cult
classic titles until their closing in 1999. Here is also a bit of a fun fact.
Goichi Suda or Suda 51 was one of the members who left the company after
Human’s closing to open up Grasshopper Manufacture. Anyway, I am here to talk
about a gem that is rarely, if ever, talked about. It’s a Tactics game. It’s a
genre I have never touched, but I decided to give it a try with another tactics
game I found myself enjoying. Let’s start with this one made by Human first,
Vanguard bandits for the PS1.

The story takes place on the Continent of Eptina
where different battles have taken place between different groups for land,
money, and supplies. Each army or kingdom uses giant mechs called ATACs.The story revolves around a 15-year-old male,
named Bastion, who one day gets caught in the war with the main antagonist,
Faulkner, who is in charge of the Imperial Army of the Junaris Empire. Bastion
will meet many allies of different kingdoms who will want to band with Bastion
to take down the Junaris Empire. The story has 3 different campaigns depending
on how you tackle the game, with two different ATAC’s you can take control of.
The story is very much like a Gundam anime or something like Escaflowne. Heck,
some of the designs of the characters and robots LOOK like they were ripped
right out of Escaflowne. It’s not a fully original story, and Bastion is not a
fully interesting character. I blame his age and just the trend of animes at
the time where 15-year-olds could pilot giant robots that could cause massive
damage. It’s still enjoyable, but you will probably be enjoying the ally
characters more than Bastion himself.

The gameplay is very much like the tactics games
that were made back then, like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre: Let us
Cling Together, and Fire Emblem. You will control a group of mechs piloted by
the many characters that join your army to take down the bad guys. You fight on
an isometric field, with your characters in their giant robots being able to
move around in a grid-like field. Once you get close to an enemy, you can
either attack him from the front, side, or to do more damage, attack them from
behind. You have your usual normal attacks, but each character can also learn
special moves with the robots each time you level. When you go into battle, the
whole area turns 3D and you actually get to see the 3D-modeled mechs attack.
It’s like how Fire Emblem breaks off from the battlefield map to see a little
battle animation happen. Now, leveling up is a little more important here since
the game can be pretty difficult. I mean, it isn’t going to stupidly punish you
like the Disgaea series, but you need to make sure you keep leveling up your
characters or else they will get wasted by the tougher enemies. There are
multiple stats that you can increase, but you can’t increase them all at once.
When you level up, you get 3 skill points and you can move them around to
wherever you want. Depending on where you put them, they will learn new
abilities. You can also gain new mechs during your journey. The most unique
part of this game is that there are actually 3 separate storylines that can
happen, depending on which paths you decide to take. There are also the usual
shops where you can buy stuff to equip your characters to gain additional
abilities. This can be a very tough game if you do not know what you’re doing,
like not leveling up ALL of your characters or doing the right tactics. Enemies
can kill your allies and they will not be able to battle until the next
mission. There is a lot of strategy here, so don’t think you can rush through
this game with the strongest characters without some proper strategy.

Graphically, it’s what I expected from tactics games
from that time. The little 2D sprites are well detailed and the 3D models look
good for that time period. The robot designs look great and are pretty
imaginative with a lot of them I swear are from Escaflowne or some kind of
mid-90’s robot anime that wasn’t Gundam. The anime opening looks decent for the
time. I think Breath of Fire 4 and Lunar: Silver Star Story’s anime cutscenes
look better. The music is also good, but it’s not as strong as, say, Final
Fantasy Tactics or Ogre Battle’s music, which I think is a bit more catchy.
Kouji Niikura composed the music. His only history of work is this game, Ape
Escape 3 as a sound designer, and was the composer for Clock Tower 2. Overall, it’s
a solid presentation for this kind of game genre, but I guess I wish there was
more to it since this game came late in the PS1’s life span, but overall its
pretty good.

Well then, what could be wrong with this game? For
one of the few tactics games I have ever played, I just found a few things
wrong with it. One of them is the obnoxious Fire Emblem and Tactics ogre
mechanic where you can’t revive fallen players. Granted, they don’t stay dead
for the rest of the game like in those two other titles, but I would have liked
to have had the ability to bring back fallen comrades with a revive spell or
something, since a lot of battles later in the game can be really tough. I also
wish the action moments were handled better where you see the 3D models of the robots
do one attack and then you go back to the sprites and the overhead battlefield
map. I think they could have easily made this game livelier with the robot
combat being real-time and making it like a Power Stone or that mini-fighting
game in Xenogears style of gameplay. I just think that Tactics games can be
more than just take a turn, attack, and wait for your next turn. This is why I
like games like Valkyria Chronicles where you can move your character wherever
you need them to move, and attack when you want to when it’s your turn.

So, what are my final thoughts about this game? I
think for a late PS1 game, I would consider this game a gem. It has a lot of
the stuff tactics gamers would love and it has its own charm, and it’s a shame
that Human Entertainment went out of business since I could easily see this
game getting a sequel of sorts. Now, finding a hard copy will be very hard. The
highest I have seen it is 70 dollars, but I know it goes for much more. Luckily
for me, the PS3 has it in the PSOne Classics section of the online store for 10
dollars. That sounds like a good deal to me. How about next week we tackle
another great Playstation Tactics game, but a bit newer?